King Cricket

September 5, 2014 Regulars

Mop-up of the day – Bears and backs

< 1 minute readWe’ll come to England’s latest one-day exploits later. For now… The upskilling of one-day skillsets This was the other Cricinfo article of ours to be published yesterday. Apparently we were to be found at both ends of the cricket writing spectrum on the 4th of September, 2014. This particular article’s

September 4, 2014 England / Extras

Overtraining in cricket – a plea for an off season

3 minute readWe’ve written a rather hefty piece for Cricinfo about overtraining in cricket. We think it’s a big deal, but we get the distinct impression that no-one else really does. It’s partly that people don’t really understand the concept. Understandably, they think it just means training too much, but overtraining is

September 3, 2014 South Africa

Faf du Plessis has grown weary of getting hit in the nads

< 1 minute readAside from batting all day at one run an over to save Test matches, Faf du Plessis’s other thing is getting hit in the balls. You might say that he’s a specialist. In the video below, he talks you through the countermeasures he has been forced to take. Here’s a

September 2, 2014 England / India

Name England’s first choice one-day bowling attack

< 1 minute readMoeen Ali made 44, 10 and 55 in his first three one-day internationals (ODIs). He was opening the batting. Then they dropped him. Today he made 67 batting at seven. Chris Woakes opened the bowling at Cardiff and took 4-52. He also opened the bowling in Nottingham. Today he was

August 31, 2014 England

The hidden reason why England won’t win the World Cup

2 minute readThe main criticism of England’s one-day batting approach recently has been that they lack the dynamic hitting which is supposed to characterise the modern game. While that’s true up to a point, we actually don’t think that it’s the worst of their problems. There’s something else going on during the

August 29, 2014 Regulars

Mop-up of the day – negativity and The Kingdom

< 1 minute readFirst up, our fortnightly Twitter round-up for Cricinfo where Grobbelaar has correctly identified that we bring nothing but negativity to the world. We’re pretty sure Shaun Pollock would have a groansome quote about judging people to deliver as a riposte to that, but he’d probably also have one about bitter,

August 27, 2014 England / India

Suresh Raina v England – what this means for the World Cup

2 minute readBefore today, Suresh Raina had made three ODI hundreds in 193 matches. He made them against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong. But Raina bats in the middle order, so that doesn’t tell us a lot. Let’s look at fifties instead. Against New Zealand, he has one in 11 innings;

August 26, 2014 Match report

Middlesex Second XI v Essex Second XI at Radlett

2 minute readGed writes: It seemed like an excellent plan when the idea was hatched. In the absence of first class cricket between Middlesex and Essex for the foreseeable future, Charley “The Gent” Malloy and I would take in a day of second XI cricket between our two teams. As luck would

August 25, 2014 Regulars

Mop-up of the day – demons and barometers

< 1 minute readFirst, some links: Summat about a demon for Cricinfo The latest Shire Horse for All Out Cricket Our cycling site should you wish to follow the Tour of Spain with us Now let’s spend the rest of Bank Holiday Monday in classic fashion by moaning about rain.

August 24, 2014 County cricket

Victory for a city in the summer

< 1 minute readCities disappear in the summer. Winter has cities, summer has counties – or at least that’s the way it used to be. Now Birmingham have won a cricket tournament and we don’t know where we are. The weather has been unseasonably cool this last week. Even the climate’s confused. Our